Sixteen Years
by ncfan
Summary: A woman knows how to wait. Spoilers for 498.


Okay, in light of 498, this is obviously AU, but I despise rescue romances and I already had a background set up for Kushina, so visit my other oneshots concerning her if you're confused. I hated the way Kishimoto handled Minato and Kushina's relationship.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

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There was little to do in that dark, shadowy world.

She didn't know what was going on in the outside world, could only wonder what was happening, as the vessel kept moving on and on, through the years and through sorrow and heartbreak and the rare moments of elation and pure joy.

It was always the same in that world, a dark place that seemed so insubstantial but was, as she had learned, painfully corporeal.

There was no Minato, not anywhere. While she existed in this mind, any Minato would be an echo, a distortion of reality and nothing but a recording left by the man himself. She could not hold fast to the belief that she'd see him again.

There was nothing to do but wait.

And for once in her life, Kushina was content to wait.

"**Still clinging to useless hope, Kushina?"**

It wasn't like Kushina waited alone.

The Kyuubi snarled from the confines of its cage, restless and pacing, fixing its noxious eyes on her slight frame, but Kushina did not fear it. She had faced it before, and would do so again. Anything to keep her world, her son's mind, from collapsing.

"Useless, Kitsune?" Her measured comment was neutral yet mocking, a key facet of all their conversations in the void. Kushina couldn't resist verbal taunts and barbs when dealing with the Kyuubi; she knew she could get away with it.

An eldritch laugh followed, rumbling and making the invisible walls and floors tremble. Kushina reached out for a slimy sewer wall, newly appeared, to keep from falling over. The familiar dim, dirty lights clicked on, and the harsh odor of sewage filled her nostrils.

It was the sewer again. A sign that the Kyuubi's influence was getting stronger, if it could make the sewer manifest at will.

"**I am the most powerful of us. I will take control of this insignificant vessel, and when I do that, my first act will be to crush that pretty little spine of yours!"**

Kushina stared at him for a moment, her violet-gray eyes opening wide as coins. Then, she smiled.

Then, she laughed.

"**What is so amusing? Speak, you foolish girl! Do you wish to make your death more painful?"**

"You're posturing!" Kushina howled, struggling to beat down the bubbles of laughter coming up from deep within her chest. She finally defeated her laughs, wiping tears away from her eyes even as they streamed down her face. She lived for these opportunities to drive the Kyuubi mad. "You sound like a little boy, all puffed up, the playground bully!"

"**I will destroy you!"** the Kyuubi howled blackly, and the awful sound came, of something heavy slamming itself against iron bars with impossible force.

But Kushina was not cowed.

She swept a graceful, mocking bow, the long tips of her hair brushing the dank stone ground with a whispering sigh. "And I remain as ever, a part of you, Kitsune. That's not going to change; Minato saw to that," Kushina added, momentarily bitter, before her emotions cleared up; that wasn't going to help with anything. Her eyes brightened, that wide, innocent, little girl look that she knew the Kyuubi hated so much. "So if you destroy me, you'll have to destroy yourself in the process."

A swish of vivid scarlet hair came as Kushina did the only thing she knew would enrage the Kyuubi more.

She began to walk away.

"**KUSHINA!"**

Kushina didn't answer, and the sewer fell away, melting back into the shadows, leaving her alone again, with her thoughts.

She stared at her feet, biting her lip.

It had been Minato's final 'gift' to her. Kushina hadn't wanted it, had railed against it, screamed and begged but he, in his final moments of madness, had seemed not to hear, and gone on without her consent.

Kushina hadn't wanted anything to happen the way it had. Naruto can't have been the only baby born that night; why hadn't Minato found another child to seal the Kyuubi in?

And why, _why_ had Minato done this to her?

It had been a move borne out of desperation, Kushina knew that. Minato had done it in the hope that were he to fail, she would not. And Kushina would not fail. Minato hadn't asked if Kushina knew what lengths she would have to go to, because Kushina _always_ finished what she started, no matter what the cost.

But why had Minato had to do it like this?

Why did he have to take the threads of her soul and bind them with something so foul? Kushina couldn't resist the corruption that slid down the rope to her forever; there were days when it was a struggle to keep from being sucked in to the Kyuubi's dark world.

In times like that, Kushina remembered.

Remembered the eyes of her father staring at her and her brother as children, as he made them promise to be strong and then was swallowed up by the war, killed by Kiri nin. He had been strong.

Kushina remembered her brother, who had never been afraid of any battle. Her brother who had died for their adopted village.

Kushina remembered the emerald eyes of her mother, who had never bowed to any wind, her eyes still steely, proud and fierce even in death. Her mother had never given way to any hard ship, and neither would Kushina.

Naruto needed her. He had never known her, but Kushina was the reason he still breathed the free air and still saw the world through his own eyes, uncorrupted by poisonous chakra and virulent hate.

Kushina was all that stood between Naruto and the abyss, and he didn't even know she existed.

There were so many things Kushina wanted to ask Minato. But they'd have to wait.

When Naruto was safe, his soul became unchained from his body and Kushina was once again free, she'd ask Minato herself.

Until then, Kushina would just have to wait.

After sixteen years, she knew how.


End file.
